Bloomberg Radio Special: A 2020 Election Update

Nathan Hagar, I'm Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, legal challenges remain, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden. Coming up over the next hour, we examine the vote, the legal battle, and the path ahead for a White House policy, plus how the next steps could play out in the days and weeks to come leading up to December's electoral College vote. That is all straight ahead for now. Let's bring in Derek Wallbank,

Bloomberg's senior editor for breaking news. And Derek, of course, the Biden team was hoping the news would break last night, that they'd get to that magic number of two seventy. What are the chances we see that news actually break this weekend? Well, Nathan, I think that the chances of getting a real sign of of where this is actually going this weekend are actually fairly good. Um, you were

looking now overnight as you wake up in America. The thing to know is that everything kind of kept pushing the same direction that it was going. In Pennsylvania, you saw the Biden lead expand again a little bit. It expanded again in Georgia a little bit. In Arizona narrowed a little bit, but not by enough that Donald Trump

needs to go and take over that state. So you still see as as America wakes up today, Joe Biden sort of standing on the precipice of victory with any one of a couple of states possibly putting him over Derek. The Trump campaign has already said it would pursue all legal path in a vote fight. So catch us up if you could about how many more paths the president might have. Well, in terms of the legal challenges, you are seeing a lot of things start to be filed

or threatened or or somehow previewed. Um And and it kind of is. It's every single state. There's something going on to various levels of severity. I think the biggest one probably and where where a lot of the focuses is in Pennsylvania, where um, the Supreme Court has gotten a little bit involved to say that some of these uh late arriving ballots need to be kind of put to the side. And that was a fight that we

knew was coming, we we knew would be there. But Amy, one of the things that I noticed here is it might be a fight that's actually numerically irrelevant. And what I mean by that is it's very, very possible that when Pennsylvania stops counting all of the votes that everyone agrees are regularly cast um, that the Biden margin is so large there that the total votes in question in this in this dispute, um will be will be less than the Biden margin, and in which case it wouldn't

change the outcome. So that's when I think we're following, though in Pennsylvania were definitely following that. UM. I think that both sides are kind of agreed on the idea that every vote should count, but Republicans are trying to make a distinction to say every legal vote should count, and then they're making some different definitions of the word legal.

But in practice, I think I would sum up by saying that Biden right now is on track for a victory that would be large enough to offset any of these potential challenges that we have seen seriously filed. Assuming numbers continue trending where they are, it does seem, Derek as though Pennsylvania could very well be the decisive stay as we do the math up to to seventy. But we also know that there is probably going to be

a recount in Wisconsin. The margin is uh slim enough there that it could trigger a recount should the Trump campaign ask for one. And Georgia's secretary of state has already said that the margin is so tight they're at current count only about four thousand votes. There's definitely going

to be a recount. How could that sway things? Well, yeah, Nathan, And and in Georgia, the overnight numbers are are ticked up enough that when the AP updates it's totals, you'll see that rise to about seven thousand for Biden, but still well within that recount territory. UM. I do think that that is a thing that's definitely in play. If there's a recount. You're unlikely to see the AP call one of those states because they tend not to do that, uh in Pennsylvania. This is the one. This is the

one that I think we're all watching very very closely. There. I'll give you a little bit of math that I did during my day uh here overnight, which is which is to say that under Pennsylvania rules, um, if the margin is within point five of a percent, then you can get to a recount. If it's above that, you don't necessarily have to have that. So what does that mean in raw votes? Somewhere in the ballpark of forty thousand votes as a margin between Biden and Trump, and

right now it's in the upper twenty thousands. So it's a reachable thing for Biden to be able to get to a recount proof uh majority in the in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And if that happens, that helps there. The other things that we're watching really really early, I think in the day are that Nevada and Arizona should have some additional numbers for us and those if those put the counts in both of those states to bed,

then Pennsylvania is academic Derek Wallbank. We have quite a lot to watch in the hours and potentially days to come in these battleground states. It's just amazing to think that so many battlegrounds remain in flux this far after election day. But we knew with a pandemic on it very well could have been like this. Derek Wallbank, Bloomberg Senior editor for Breaking News, Thanks so much for being with us this morning on this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak.

I'm Nathan Hager alongside Amy Morris, and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. It is seven seventeen on Wall Street. I'm Nathan Hager, I'm Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, Legal challenges remain, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden. Let's bring in Kevin's really now. Kevin is the chief

Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Radio and Television. Kevin, good morning to you. Let's get caught up on what we may have missed overnight. Joe Biden remains ahead in four key states, ballots still being counted as we speak. President Trump continues to push the idea of stopping the count that there are some conspiracy theories surrounding this election. Where are we

right now? Good morning, Amy. Last night, Joe Biden speaking from Wilmington, Delaware, delivering what largely what he was his team was hoping would be an acceptance speech or a declaratory speech of sorts. It turned into another speech urging patience and calm, But he went on to say that he is going to make sure that every vote is counted. He also said that he believes he will win in the battleground states of Georgia as well as Arizona, and if he were to do that, Amy, he would be

the first Democratic candidate to do so since Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign, they're saying that they're willing to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if they if they want to. But behind the scenes, yes your day, when I spoke with Republican members of Congress, they were the President was met with a deep source of skepticism about what the strategy is and how long the President

was willing to continue onward with this approach. Well, in the meantime, as the president pursues this approach, Kevin, we do have this very slow, protracted counting of mail in votes that many of these states hadn't been equipped to

deal with up until now. Give us a sense of where we are in terms of where the count is in some of these battleground states, particularly Georgia, where the where the margin is so razor thin right now, precisely so Georgia, it's a it's it's incredibly a razor thin margin, and it's it's something like less than a percentage point according to some counts. But they're headed for a recount, and recounts typically take at least several days. And that

is a very optimistic estimate. Uh, it can take several weeks, and so we could be in mid November by the time Georgia gets gets a result. Uh. In terms of Nevada, UH that we're anticipating new vote counts from Clark County of course, that's where Las Vegas is. We're anticipating new vote counts sometime Nathan, within the next couple of hours and throughout the weekend. And then in Pennsylvania where Joe

Biden yesterday surpassed President Trump in the vote total. Uh, they're waiting for military absentee ballots and they're continuing to count as well. To be frank with you, the Biden campaign had wanted there to be one more state called before he spoke at Wilmington, Delaware last night. He was

gonna speak at like seven o'clock at night. And then I checked in with the source on the campaign and what they told me was, well, they're still, you know, they're waiting and optimistic that when he spoke, he would get to that magic number, or at least one of the networks or ap would have put him at to seventy.

But that just didn't have in and you know, and now it's becoming a situation where you very much could have someone declaring at to seventy uh, Joe Biden saying, you know, thank you, I'm we're looking forward to being president, and President Trump not conceding. Let's talk about the mood, Kevin. You've talked to operatives on both sides at the aisle, Trump supporters and Biden supporters. Have you been able to gauge the mood, the sense of optimism or the sense

of determination. What's the temperature now? As I mentioned yesterday, I spoke with several Republican members of Congress and and they actually had a a a call with the Republican Conference yesterday uh in in what would have been on Capital Hill. But this obviously because of covid on via telephone, and there's a sense amy of, well, we we made gains in the House of Representatives and we're still competitive in the Senate and when everyone was predicting a blue wave.

But at terms of the press residential level, I would say that while publicly you're hearing potential candidates like Senator Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and others deliver statements saying every legal vote must be counted, what you're not seeing is a rush to a campaign war room or a legal barroom. And that's where there's a lot of division. The president's inner circle, his members of his family, they are in contact very much and in some cases on the ground

in these battleground states. The president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, still very much briefing the president, talking to the President about what's going on. But again, they it they don't appear to necessarily have the entire Republican Party fullheartedly behind them, um. And that's a that's a marked difference from other fights that the president has been in, including impeachment and Mueller and all that. And in terms of the legal strategy

that the President's team is pursuing Kevin. During the campaign, we've been talking about how there had been such a cash drain on the Trump side. Is there enough resources for the President's side to mount the kind of multi pronged legal fight that they're hinting at that they want. Well, they have said that there is, and that that their attorneys are are willing to file, you know, a state by state claims and and they ultimately do feel that if it should end up in the Supreme Court, that

it would be in their favor, you know. But it's it's difficult to talk about the multi state legal approach, Nathan, as you and I have talked about before, because we don't have any source material in front of us, and we and we there have not been briefings in the sense typically with with this type of situation, you would anticipate round the clock briefings and updates coming from the President's re election campaign, and that just hasn't really started yet.

But it's unknown if they're working on that now. We got reports yesterday Maggie Haberman at The New York Times reporting that David Bossey had been hired to be a lead figure on the legal fights by the president's re election campaign. He had fallen out a favor at one time with the President. Now apparently he's back in based upon those developments. But that's what's going on on that side. On Joe Biden's side, they are continuing to have meetings

about COVID nineteen updates. I can tell you I've spoken directly with sources who are connected to his transition team. They're having transition meetings. Yesterday, Uh, dal Jones reported that Gary Gensler is going to be in a Biden administration, the Wall Street oversight advisor. Uh So they're they're continuing

onward in terms of a transition. But it's interesting because they also have to be careful because he still hasn't reached two seventy and we got a lot more to come as we continue to dive into the legal challenges and just the simple vote count itself. As Uh, this election certainly has gone into much more than overtime now. Kevin Cirelli, Chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Radio and Television,

Thanks for being with us this morning. We're gonna be checking back with you throughout this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak on the election process. Coming up, we'll have more on the vote, the legal battle, and the path ahead for White House policy straight ahead on this Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hager alongside Amy Morris, and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg day Break

special report. I'm Nathan Hager, I'm Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden. Coming up, we'll look at the future of policy at Pennsylvania Avenue. Let's bring in Greg Valiate now. He is the chief US policy strategist at a g F Investments. Greg, good morning, do you always a pleasure to have You want to pick your brain a little bit this morning about Joe Biden.

We know he has a slight lead now, and if he does hold on to that, and if the count for Congress does remain the same, we could have a Democrat in the White House, a democratically held House, and a Republican Senate. I want to ask you about that scenario. Do you see gridlock, a divided government, potential for cooperation? What do you see, well, good morning, Amy, I'd say

primarily Gridlock. I think that if the Republicans hold onto the Senate, and we can't be positive because of runoffs on January six in Georgia, But if the Republicans control of the Senate, I don't see a lot getting done, and I certainly don't see big tax increases. Although, Greg, we heard from Biden last night, of course, uh saying, you know, expressing a message of patients, while at the same time trying to look ahead, saying that he has a lot of work to do on the pandemic, on

the economy, racial justice, and climate change. He's obviously laying out an agenda. There is it possible for him to pursue something of that agenda? Does he have a mandate to do so? He might, Nathan, But at the same time, I think a lot of the proposals that he's talking about would run into stiff opposition from McConnell and McConnell's Republican truths. So maybe a few things. The real tip off will be how quickly we get confirmation of Biden's

cabinet secretaries. That could That could be a rocky process. Now this count Greg is taking a very long time, and I want to get your thoughts on what that means for the nation. What I mean is, on the one hand, it seems like it would be a good thing that is taking a long time. It means a lot of people voted, they participated the elections. Officials are being exceedingly careful. But on the other hand, everybody's in limbo. The whole country is just holding its breath. Is this

good or bad? It's bad. I think talk about how this could be fraudulent, that the the election was rigged. Some of the rhetoric from the President and his aids, I think are not helpful. I do worry a little about social unrest. If this UH persists for weeks without any final resolution by the courts, I think that you could see a lot of protests. Joe Biden has tried to pitch himself as the kind of president who can cool the temperature of the country and try to reach

out to those voters who supported President Trump. What kind of challenge could he face if he does get those two seventy key electoral votes and make it into the White House. What kind of challenge does he face two try to bind the nation's wounds. Well, primarily, I would say from the Senate. Again, the most intriguing angle here, I think, Nathan, is the relationship between Biden and McConnell. They've known each other for decades, they've worked together pretty well.

Both are known as the expert dealmakers. So to be a little optimistic this morning, I do see a glimmer of hope that the two of them could get together. And it would have to be close to the center, not on the far left or far right. But I think the two of them could get things done. So that speaks a cooperation between the White House and the Senate. But what does the next president, whether it's Trump or Biden, face immediately on day one, what is the very first

job for that president? Covid, covid, covid. I think that is by far the number one issue. I think that first of all, Biden will bring back Dr Faucci from you know, he's been in Siberia. I think Fauci thought she becomes a be a big big player once once again. They'll have to be a debate internally whether you shut things down. I don't think that Biden would. I think there'll be much tougher guidelines on masks and social distancing.

But I think it's more than anything else. It's COVID and just quickly, Greg, I mean that raises the question of stimulus as well, doesn't it. Yes, it does, big issue for the markets. There will be a stimulus bill steerless forecast. I can't tell you when, I can't tell you how much it will cost, but I do think in the next couple of months we have to have another stimulus bill. All right, Greg, I want to build

on something that you said earlier about civil unrest. It does seem like what the electorate wants to know is not just who wins, but then what happens when one candidate is declared the winner. Because businesses are still boarded up, folks are not letting their guard down. What could possibly happen over the next few weeks, Well, there could be protests that there already are protests in New York, Portland's

many cities. And if the rhetoric over a rigged election gets more harsh if a final winner has not been determined, I think protests could spin out of control. Does it make a difference that there could possibly be a split within the Republican Party over whether to fight this vote count and how far to take the fight. The key is of the centrist Republicans. Will they start to speak

out more forcefully. We saw on the Wall Street Journal this weekend and editorial saying that perhaps Donald Trump passed to gracefully concede, but if the president does not gracefully succeed, that's going to raise the temperature all around the country. Greg Valier, chief US policy strategist for a GF Investments,

Thanks for being with us UH this morning. Greg on this election special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak, and coming up we'll get more on the legal battle for the White House, how the pending and current lawsuits could play out potentially on their way to the High Court. I'm Nathan Hager alongside Amy Morris, and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hager, I'm

Amy Morris. The path to the White Houses there for Joe Biden, but a protracted legal battle could be in the offing. Bloomberg Law host June Grasso is with us now our resident legal expert. We take a look at the flurry of legal activity that has accompanied this election. Count June good Saturday morning. What are the cases? Good morning, What are some of the cases that you're watching right now? Obviously we've had quite a lot of them. What's got

your focus this morning? Well, the main case that we're watching is the case in Pennsylvania. First because Pennsylvania is such, you know, a swing state and so important in this election, but also because that's the case. And by the way, when I say Pennsylvania, there are several cases in Pennsylvania, but there is one in particular, several cases, one that's already been dismissed. But the case that I'm talking about is the one that probably everyone has heard, and that

is about the ballots that come in late. And this has already gone to the Supreme Court once. So the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said it's okay to count ballots that come in that three days after election day as long as they're post my Violet and day. That went up to the Supreme Court in a four to four decision.

The justices said we'll leave that in place for now because the for the for the conservative justices said, you know, we're open to leaving to discussing this later, maybe after the election, because you have those ballots segregated, so that makes it easier. Even so, that's why people are so focused on Pennsylvania, because the Supreme Court has left the door open to considering that again. And then there was

also an order by Justice Alito yesterday. This is sort of kind of odd because the Republicans went to the Supreme Court again and said they're not keeping those ballots segregated. And Justice Alito was the justice for that um that handles uh any special requests from that area, and he said, okay, he ordered them to keep it segregated to the state officials, which the state officials say, well, we're always already doing that. So it's sort of it's unclear why the Pennsylvania Republicans

went up to the Supreme Court again. You know, it's confusing, it's a little Well, that's what I wanted to ask about, Jin because my original question to you was going to be about the trip to the Supreme Court and how the Supreme Court may receive a case like this. But from where you're from, what you're telling me, it sounds like it may not be just one trip to the Supreme Court. We may see this go over and over to the Supreme Court because our system of election is

decentralized all the way down to the district level. So if the Trump campaign has cases it wants to bring from district you know, just hypothetically one thirty nine out of Nevada and District one seventy eight out of Pennsylvania, you know, these different districts, we could see trips over and over and over again to the Supreme Court. Could be not well, theoretically you could, but remember something else. You don't just go automatically to the Supreme Court. You

just can't. You know, even President Trump can't say they did they they're not counting correctly. In Michigan, justices take my case, you have to go through the steps. You have to go to the lower court, and then the lower court has to usually send it to the higher court. So it's it's a process. And also not every kind of case would go to the Supreme Court. Then the Supreme Court has to decide are we going to take this case or not. It takes four justices to decide

whether or not to take the case. So it's a process and it's not quite as easy as President Trump makes it sound when he says, I think the highest Court is going to decide this, there's a lot of steps in between. And also the question has to be

a question that the Supreme Court will deal with. Remember Bush by Gore, that was the one case in our history where the Supreme Court decided the outcome of an election, and that was such a odd Your combination of circumstances where you had five thirty seven votes in the state that mattered in the election, the pivotal state, So that's

a very unusual circumstances. And I hope. I heard an election law expert in one of the panels I was listening to, said, I just hope for the sake of the American people that it doesn't come down to Philadelphia, to Pennsylvania because the laws there are the Republicans legislature didn't really take care of the pre election laws the way they should have. It didn't pass enough laws to

make it easier. And of course, the big difference this type around June is that we have the potentiality of having a number of states that could be decisive as the as the vote county continues. And when you mentioned the steps that have to be gone through. As you've been watching this legal process play out, we know you've already seen that the Trump side has been stymied and a number of the steps that it's already tried to take. The lower courts have thrown out a number of the

Trump sides complaints on the merits. What is the Trump strategy right now? Is there a consistent legal strategy that is being pursued at the moment, as far as you can say, not that, And I can see and not that any of the election law experts I've spoken to, the many election law experts I've spoken to over the last month, I can see what happens is they're what they seem to be doing is just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. So you have a

lot of these suits are about election law observers. So you have Trump campaign observers that want to see what's going on as they're counting the votes. Well they're allowed to be there, but they're complaining about the access that they have. For example, President Trump the other day said we want a great victory in Pennsylvania. That victory was that they got to get to within six feet of where the uh the counters were the people counting the ballots were as opposed to they were about ten or

twenty feet before. And remember something else, this is all being live streamed, so the public can actually see what's going on in these most of these places where they're counting ballots. So that was the big victory that he referred to. Those are the there's all there was. Also, and you talked about cases being thrown out. The case in Michigan was thrown out for that reason, and um, these cases don't come back. You can't come back later and say my people didn't get close enough, so let's

discount all the ballots. That's so that's sort of a dead issue now. And in Georgia, one of the issues they raised was someone claimed where the election observers claimed that he saw a worker put ballots that came in late with ballots that were on time. That was there was no evidence of that when they took it to the court. So there has to be evidence to support these claims, and so far, in none of these cases

has there been an evidence. Legally, can the loser in a presidential election continue the court fight even after January, even after the inauguration, Can they amy that's a good question. No, I think they probably after January. He's not the president anymore and UM any so, any kind of lossy you have to bring would most likely be dismissed by the court because you have to say, well, what's the what do you have at stake here? What's you're standing in

this case? You have to have a There has to be a case or controversy for the court to consider it. So what's the case or controversy at that point? I mean, you could file the lawsuit, but I believe that it would be dismissed outright. And at what point do you stop? That's you know, that's a great question, because you know President Trump and UM an election expertise I spoke to, Justin Levitt, said that President Trump, if a doctor hit him on the knee with a rubber mallet, would sue.

And that's been his history. I mean, that's he's sued so many times in the past, and a lot of those suits have gone nowhere. So would he suit. Possibly he would, But at some point it's time to stop the lawsuits and and move on. We have about a minute left here. June. Of course, the president has been questioning the validity of mail in ballots, at least rhetorically in terms of that being a legal strategy. What kind of threshold would the president have to meet to question

the validity of a mail in ballot in court? Well, the whole issue here is that they have to show evidence that there were some kind of fraud involved with the mail and ballots. And I do have to say that there is a mail in ballots are a little more difficult than regular ballots, So there is a slightly higher percentage of them that may get tossed or discounted because people forgot to put it in the right envelope

or sign it. There are a lot of different steps and a lot of people are not used to it, So there is that. But the point is that he would have to have a state where the number of mail in ballots it's called the marginal litigation, so the number of the mail in ballots has to be enough for him to have victory in that state. So that's a lot of mail in ballots. And if you look at these cases that are that are pending there, they're talking about a thousand ballots here, a thousand ballots there.

Even in Arizona it's ten thousand ballots, so not a lot, not a lot of margin. June Grosso, host of Bloomberg Law, are resident legal expert. Thanks for being with us this morning. Stay tuned for another hour of complete coverage on the election in the future of White House policy. I'm Nathan Hagar alongside Amy Morris. This is Bloomberry. We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and

I will be declared the winners. We think there's going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof. I ask everyone to stay calm. The process is working. It's going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land. This is special coverage of the twenty twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hagar,

Hi'm Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, legal challenges remain, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden. Now coming up over the next hour, we'll examine the vote and the legal battle, plus the path ahead for White House policy, plus how the next steps could play out in the days and weeks leading up to December's Electoral College vote. That's all straight ahead. We bring in Wendy Schiller, chair of the Political science

department at Brown University. Good to have you with us this morning on this special program, Professor, and I want to take a look at how this election process, this protracted count is really affecting the political tenor in this country. How much soul searching needs to be done by either of the parties. Uh, now that this is all going on, well, um,

good morning, amazing, Good morning, Amy. I think that what's interesting about the slow processes it's very frustrating, I think now to people who voted for Joe Biden, who support Joe Biden, who want this to be declared and to move on. But in some ways it's actually you know, it's giving people time to sort of get used to

this idea, and particularly people who who supported Trump. Now we've seen examples of people who support Trump are going down to the polling places, and you know, very few cases seem to be sort of more agitated than not

mostly peaceful. But you know this, the longer this takes, the more methodical it is, the more explanation of what's going on, you know, the harder it is to challenge the ultimate result as being fraudulent, and you're seeing that now from Republican leaders who are kind of walking this tight line. You're also seeing it from some conservative media sources that are you know, strident, and there are sort of in prime time but starting to say kind of

looks like Joe Biden's we president. We've got to get used to the idea. So in some ways, the slowness of the process, Nathan, maybe one of the blessings actually of such a huge turnout and and absentee ballot and mail in ballot, because it's giving people sort of time to explain and time to get used to the idea. Professor Schiller, we know the country is politically divided. You can see that in these razor thin margins in this vote.

But i'd like to get your take on where we are politically in this country where counting votes in a

presidential election seems to have become a source of political debate. Well, Amy, it would be great to think, oh, this is the first time people have far by counting votes, you know, but I'm definitely all enough to have set through Bush v. Gore, And of course we've had these controversies for you know, a hundred and twenty years minimally, you know, we turned to a different balloting system in the late eighteen hundreds, about eighteen eighty eight going forward, which is sort of

office block, meaning you voted not for your party per se, but you voted for individual offices and candidates. And ever since then we've had a much more complicated voting apparatus, So we've been challenging votes forever, you know, And I think that's I think that's the interesting part. People are so glued into its starting, glued and tuned in that there now I know what a provisional ballot is, Like I knew what it was before, but I didn't know

quite right. Right, You're gonna have people talking Thanksgiving about provisional ballots in America. You know that's not bad thing. Does this point to the deed for reform in how the electoral process is done in this country? Yes? I think, Makedon, I think I think. Listen, you know you speaking with this idea that you're gonna have two million ballots coming in on election day and you don't let people count them when they come in. That's what the Pennsylvania State

Legislature did, because you can't start counting until election night. Clearly, now we're looking at Pennsylvania, that is not good public policy for anybody, for Trump supporters or for Biden supporters. So there are some decisions that were made, I think to process the enormous mail and ballast. But I think the good news is that people will have more ways

of voting going forward. I do think they're going to insist on having a lot of these options, and hopefully that means more turnout, greater numbers of turnout in the future. What does this mean looking ahead at for the electoral college? How will the electoral College handle uh all of this and what does it mean for the future of the electoral college. There are those who have been calling for it to be banned. So the electoral causes is to

two things I'll try to get in. One is state legislatures can turn it from lunatic all to proportional representation. That's all you need. You don't need to change the constitution. You just change the way you allocate your electoral College delegates, the way that the main in a breast that have done. Every state can do that and it would be more fair. Would it changed the outcome? In the end? We don't know,

but it would be more fair. And that is something people can agitate at the local level for for the their state legislature. So that's something you can do on the ground going forward. The second thing is I am a little nervous about the electoral college. It just turns out to be super narrow, you know, faithless selectors of Screme Court case this summer said basically, you can't really do that. States can sort of punish you, pull you back, whatever.

But it's still nerve wracking if it's super close that some people who go to electoral college um can defect and from the popular vote in their state. Screme Court decision is pretty clear that they believe the intent is that you should follow a popular vote in your state, whether it's legally bound or not. But still it's nerve wracking. I think a lot of people are a little nervous that we've got to get to that point to know that this election result, whichever way it goes, will be

you know, solidified and cemented now. And it's really interesting, even as we continue to watch the votes being counted, President Trump is once again tweeting this more and he sent out three tweets, uh, talking about tens of thousands of illegally received votes after eight pm Tuesday, election day, he says, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania

and certain other razor thin states. It goes on from there, But the rhetorical strategy that we're seeing from the President as this count goes on, of uh, separating legal from illegal votes as he sees them, is going to be something to continue to watch very closely. Wendy Schuler, chair of the Political Science Department at Brown University, thank you for your insights this morning as we continue to watch the count. Roll in of Nathan Hagar along with Amy Morrison,

and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hager, I'm Amy Morris. The path to the White House is there for Joe Biden, but how much power will he have with a divided Congress. Now we want to bring in Kevin Seilli, chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Radio and Television. Kevin, A, good morning

to you. We have been high. We've been listening to two very different messages from the candidates, Joe Biden talking about unity, asking for people to be patient and stick by him. President Trump meanwhile demanding the count be stopped.

How are those messages resonating. Well, Look, I think in terms of what we saw last night from former Vice President Joe Biden when he spoke in Wilmington, Delaware, quite frankly, he wanted it to be a declaratory victorious speech, but he wasn't able to get that because the state has not been called that would get him to that magic two hundred and seventy threshold. The count as it stands now in the electoral College amie to sixty four to

two fourteen, with Biden leading. Meanwhile, Uh, they're still optimistic, they're still earning urging patients. And he said something yesterday though that I think many of the sources that I was talking to throughout the day yesterday wanted to hear, which was that they are making the legal threat still seriously enough to make sure that they're prepared for it. And he had a line in a speech where he

said that he would make sure that every vote was counted. Meanwhile, President Trump also continuing to work with his inner circle Jared Kushner Rudy Giuliani in order to pursue legal actions, and they have been deployed, uh, some of them throughout the country to some of these battleground states. So the Biden team is exuding patients. The Trump team is indicating that it is willing to take this fight through every

legal channel. If there is that sort of trepidation from House Republicans, does that put pressure on the Trump side, uh to perhaps not go as far as they have expressed rhetorically that they're willing to go legally. Kevin, I think that's a really smart point, Nathan, what you just said about rhetorical arguments and media arguments versus the actual nuts and bolts on the rounds in some of these

battleground states. Um, it's been difficult, I think for everyone in the media to cover the legal elements of this because we haven't really seen a cohesive legal message nor strategy that could change. This is a very quickly evolving strategy. But that that frustration, based upon my reporting, even when I talked to members of Congress and who are Republicans,

they're feeling that as well. Um, And so the law it's a long way of saying that I'm not sure the president's legal team, with the addition of David Bossi, who they've brought on, Jared Kushner has brought on, I'm not sure they yet. As of now, UH have clearly articulated nor rallied the Republican leadership and thought leaders at this point behind them to get them all on the same page. They know they're not speaking from the same

playbook today. And now, Kevin, there are some Biden supporters who want to see Biden go ahead and act like a president elect. You know, President Trump came out early Wednesday morning and said he won. So they're looking at Biden as someone who can stand up and say he won. Why they're asking why Biden doesn't just go ahead and claim that well, and Speaker Pelosi also mentioned him as president elect Biden as well. So this is a I mean, Amy, it's it's just remarkable to see the both sides in

terms of declaring victory. And I can tell you, based upon my own reporting, that there was some internal deliberations on the Trump side about how far he should have gone. Some wanted him to go further on that speech on election night in the early morning hours after um and and the short answer is, well, some would some of my sources tell me that what Biden already is doing that uh he And it was reported yesterday that uh

Gary Gensler will be his Wall Street oversight advisor. Um, based upon my reporting sources, you know, continue to tell me that that Biden is being briefed on COVID nineteen, that he is being briefed on the economy on yesterday's unemployment numbers at six and you use you heard him make mention to that, and so in practice, yes, in in rhetoric, not yet the declaratory statements. It's not an

assessment of his tone right now. Always, Uh, Lame duck sessions are tough stuff to get anything done in the laptock session. What you have this kind of protracted count going on, legal maneuvering and the need for a stimulus or some sort of response to this resurging coronavirus pandemic. I mean, there are a lot of factors uh coming in here, Uh that could make it very difficult to get something done in a lame duck cabin you know.

But here's here's the variable that I don't think we've we've we've talked enough about and that's the uptaking COVID nineteen cases, right, because you're seeing the uptick really have to implement the policy in Europe, whether it's the k France, Germany, and those governments, mind you, ideologically diverse in terms of politics.

So here the United States, we have been so focused on the election that I don't think, uh, and maybe we're a couple of weeks out from this, I don't think that we've fully had a reconciliation of the upticking cases. Hundred thousand plus cases in the United States. Another day of a hundred thousand plus cases in the United States, and mind you are Jennifer jacob scooping yesterday that Mark Meadows, the President's chief of staff, also contracting COVID nineteen as well.

So you know that I say all of that because COVID nineteen really could place pressure on local governments around the country to to add more restrictions, and as a result of that, that could force Congress to act in terms of fiscal negotiations. Secretary Revenution and Speaker Pelosi, mind you, both saying publicly uh this week that they're still going to continue their deliberations. Kevin, let's build on a little

bit of what Nathan just asked you about. What Because what we're basically boiling this down to is the business of government and how it can continue while all of this limbo is ongoing. What would the path ahead be for White House policy even while we are in this period of uncertainty? Does that have to freeze as well? No? I mean, the US just took the weaker groups off the terror lists yesterday and so and I mentioned that because the government is still very much going on, and

I think that they're rightfully. The American people are are focused on what's going on in terms of their elections. Uh. And Amy, you and I have have talked about this before almost you know, with millions and millions of Americans voting um and you know, for the first time ever such a dramatic increase in mail in ballots. Uh. It's taking a couple of days at least for this process

to play out. But the process is playing out, whether it's down in Georgia where there's going to be a recount, or in Nevada, where we're anticipating over the next couple of hours additional reports on ballots from Clark County, where Nevada of course is low caated or in the judicial system where the Trump campaign is continuing to exports legal options.

There's multiple process, process proceeds, Amy play, but they're playing out. Yeah, and when you have a pandemic going on, we knew this was going to take some time, and with a resurgence of cases, it just reinforces the fact that this count needs to be done not only carefully but safely. So it's gonna take a while. Kevin cereali chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Radio and Television. Thank you for getting us up to speed. Here. I'm Nathan Hagar alongside Amy Morris,

and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. This is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hagar, I have Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, but the path to the White Houses are for Joe Biden. Let's bring in Emily Wilkins, now Bloomberg Government reporters. She is with the Biden campaign in Wilmington, Delaware. Good morning to you, Emily.

I wanted to ask you about the Biden camp, which obviously has been holding its breath ready to release the balloons and shoot the confetti cannon. They thought they might be able to do that last night. Didn't work out that way. So where are we now? So, as we just heard, Biden is up in four major states. UH. If he wins Pennsylvania day, if that is called for him, that's it. UH. Nevada and Arizona is another pathway to

its victory. We're also looking at Georgia. We saw Biden address the nation last night, and his remarks were far more substantive than anything else we've heard since election night. They were also forward looking. Biden began to talk about uniting the country, putting anger aside, bringing people together, and also began to talk about the response that his administration

would have the coronavirus. He's still not declaring victory, but the speech we heard tonight from Biden was the speech that we would expect from the next president of the United States. What we expect Biden to make that speech definitively once a projection at or past to seventy is reached, or is he still going to put in that note of caution given the uh seeming unwillingness of the current president to um end this fight That's a great question.

At this point, the Biding campaign has been taking the calls, um, the network calls and the AP calls for the states as they come. The AP and Fox News declared Arizona for him, and the Biding campaign has been counting that in their total, despite the fact that some of the other networks haven't called that state yet. But Biden does

have to be cautious here, you know. His message to voters over the last several weeks has been that he cannot declare victory, that Trump cannot declare victory, that it's rather the networks, the polsters, the people counting. Who are the ones who will say is definitively who is the next president? Emily? What measures is Biden taking now in order to hit the ground running when that presidential transition gets underway, assuming he maintains his lead, wins the court battles,

and as officially declared the president elect. So Budden has already started reaching out to individuals to help with his transition team. UM A couple that we've heard of the other day, a former Commodity Futures Treating Commissioner chairman Gary Gensler and Keeping and executive down Grave are being tapped to oversee financial regulations under a Biden administration. So we've got a couple of names there. We also know that Biden's reaching out to a number of other individuals trying

to put together that transition team. You got to think there's a lot of jocking going around behind the scenes as well for high senior administration official positions, even in cabinet level positions. What are hearing in terms of who's trying to get Biden's here right now? Well, I think an important thing to keep in mind here is what the Senate is going to look like at this point. We don't know if we're headed for Republican controlled Senate

that's the most likely scenario. There is a potential that you have at Senate which gives Democrats the slightest of slight advantages. And look in a Senate like that, uh, it might be a little bit hard to see uh, Treasury Secretary Elizabeth barn or Labor Secretary Bernie Standards because there's going to be some concern that that those individuals need to remain in the Senate and needs to remain

solid Democratic vote. Biden is also probably going to have to put forward a number of cabinet nominees who are a little more moderate rather than some progressive names that could face a lot of turbulence their nomination process in the Senate. Emily, which states are the Biden campaign taking note of at this hour? Pennsylvania, maybe an obvious one. In Georgia, maybe the Surprise, But I'm wondering about Arizona

and Nevada. Well, the Biden campaign is pretty confident in the AP and Foxes call of Arizona, but I think everyone is still watching that one very closely at that point. Um Nevada is obviously the other one. That Pennsylvania has always been within the sites of the of teen Biden, but I didn't spend so much time there. He started election day there, he was there the day before election

day and the day before that. Pennsylvania has always been a really key state for Biden in sort of building back that blue wall of Wisconsin in Michigan and Pennsylvania in the Midwest. And that's definitely one that his campaign and I think the rest of us too, are watching very very closely today and just thirty seconds here, Emily, of psychologically, Pennsylvania is important as well as his childhood home absolutely. When Biden visited Scratton, he visited his childhood home.

This is on election day. He met with the people there and I think wrote on the wall some variation of from this house to the White House, with the grace of God. All right, We're going to continue to see how it goes. It's Pennsylvania and a handful of other states still in flux. On this Saturday morning, Bloomberg Government reporter Emily Wilkins with us from Delaware, where biden campaign headquarters is located in the capitol of Wilmington's Thank you,

Emily for joining us this morning. And straight ahead on this Bloomberg Daybreak special report, We're gonna look ahead at the path ahead for policy with the potential for gridlock in Washington if it turns out that the blue wave doesn't fully materialize. On Nathan Hagar along with Amy Morris and Michael Barr nine on Wall Street, and this is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty election from Bloomberg Radio. And this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hager,

I'm Amy Morris. The path to the White House is there for Joe Biden, but how much power will we have with a divided Congress. We bring you Greg Garow are Bloomberg Government reporter covering Congress, which, like the presidential race, remains somewhat influx, particularly uh in the In the Senate, there's still a pretty good chance. Greg, I think it's safe to say that Republicans retain control of the Senate, but two key races in Georgia we're going to run off.

That's right. Um, So basically the Senate is forty to forty eight. The Republicans are leading in races in North Carolina and Alaska, which means those two runoffs in Georgia could determine whether Republicans keep their majority or if the Democrats can pull to a fifty fifty tie, which would allow them to organize the Senate as a with a

tie breaking vote of a Vice President Kamala Harris. Provided the Biden Harris ticket wins and Democrats are able to unseek two Republican senators, that's the only way they can do it. It's gonna be a tall order. So Republicans are mortally than not to have a very narrow majority when the new Congress convenes. You know, Greg, back in two thousand. It was Florida, Florida, Florida that was the

pivotal state. UM break this down for us this time, which state is more pivotal because it seems like Joe Biden has several paths. He does have several paths. And I think maybe the watchwhere this time is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, or that's not easy to say three times. We could We could be here all day if we said all the states that were so close three times, but Pennsylvania is one of them. Twenty electoral votes that alone would

get Joe Biden the presidency. So right now Biden's up at about twenty nine thousand votes in that state. They're about eighty nine thousand mail in ballots left to count as of this morning, plus so called provisional ballots. Most of these mail in ballots are in Philadelphia or in

the county that has Pittsburgh. These are very democratic counties, and Biden has been winning these votes with more than seventy percent of the vote because Biden had his wanted his supporters to vote early, and Trump had his supporters want to vote on election day. So these votes have been trunning, very democratic. I would expect Biden's lead in

Pennsylvania increase. There was so much betting ahead of the election greg of a blue wave in the markets, uh, that we would see a Democratic takeover decisively, and obviously we didn't get that this time around. Uh. That looks like the House will hold onto its majority, though not as uh as deep as it was in the current Congress. What could that mean potentially for how leadership is made up in the House. Well, I think it's hard to say, um,

how it's gonna affect the leadership structure. It could be the same Democratic leadership. I mean, you do have some leaders who one of the leaders Ben ray Luhan, a top ranking House Democrat, did get elected to the Senate, So there'll be a shuffle in the leadership down there. But at the top of the leadership structure is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and she said she'd want to be Speaker for one more term. I presume she would have the

votes to do it. Although there is some uh, you know, frustration within Democrat ranks because they underperformed in this election. They're going to lose seats when they fully expected and predicted publicly multiple times that they would gain seats. But they're going to have a reduced Democratic majority. How reduced that is remains to be seen because we still have

a lot of uncalled races. But it just makes uh pelos Seas that weakens the pelos sees negotiating power a little bit because she doesn't have as many votes at her disposal she did before. But Democrats will still have a majority, but a narrow one. Does that then translate greg into a mandate for those who are still holding on to their seats in the House, And does that then lead to not just gridlock, but maybe an opportunity I try to be so sunshiny here, maybe an opportunity

for cooperation. Yes, well, one would hope there'd be opportunities for cooperation, but it's really hard to see how that happens. You're going to have a you know, if Biden is elected president, that would be by uh, I mean he'll win by four or five million votes, but you know, uh by two, you know, three or four percentage points. But in the Senate of the House, the Senate is

going to be fifty fifty or Republican or Republican. And in the Senate, to get a lot of things done, you often need sixty votes to advance major legislation in the House. As we mentioned, it's gonna be a very narrow majority for Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats. So you have to wonder what kind of big things can pass a Democratic controlled House, a Senate that's probably going to be controlled by Republicans by very narrow margin and be signed into law by a President Biden if he does

win the win this election. Pandemic relief, I think is one thing you're gonna watch out for. But can they agree on big ticket things like infrastructure? The two parties are still very very uh divided on some major policies

on taxes and spending. And when you have a Senate that is held by such tight margins, no matter which party ultimately gains the majority, greg it gives leverage to just about every Senator depending on whether they want to try to pass something or hold up legislation, which often happens in the Senate. How could this potentially come up the works on the Senate side of the Capitol. Yeah, Senate,

it's going to be close to fifty. It does kind of magnify the importance of maybe, you know, the few senators remaining who are sort of in the middle of their respective political caucuses. Ideologically, you want to look at somebody like a Joe Mansion of West Virginia. We're probably the most conservative Democrat and the Senate. Um he'll, I mean he and he and Biden are friendly and they agree on a lot of things. But he's not from

the progressive wing of the party. So um so, I mean he could be an important dealmaker in the Senate. On the Republican side, Senator Susan Collins from Maine was reelected. Uh perhaps you know, perhaps in a surprise. He was trailing in most of the polls. She's one of the rare moderates in the Senate. She's also someone to watch, someone who's gonna try and forge compromises with people like Joe Mansion on the other side of the aisle on

things like pandemic relief. So those are senators to watch Senate because if just a couple of senators from one party joined the other party, they can you can get a majority that way and advance legislations. Will have to see, we have to see what the final result of the Senate is. Uh, have an idea of what kind of bipartisan opportunities there are in a in a Senate that's gonna be closely divided. We've been talking this morning about what job one might be for whomever does win the

presidential race. But I want to ask you what job one might be for the House and Senate once the dust settles, and will it be the same job one. Well, the first things are going to do is they're going to organize their leadership. And in the Senate there's still some you know, suspense at least about who's going to be majority Leader's most likely going to be Mitch McConnell.

But if if the Biden Harris ticket wins and the Democrats win those Georgia seats, you will have a fifty Senate with a Vice President Harris as a tie eyebreakers. So that could allowed Chuck Schumer to become the majority leader. But I do I do think the Republicans are more favored than not to hold their Senate majority. But Job one,

I think is the pandemic relief um. You know, the latest tranche of aid ran out months ago and the two sides, the two parties could not agree on a on a relief package next to relief package before the election, and you know, we've all been so heavily focused on this election, we maybe we lose sights sometimes the fact that, you know, we had a record number of cases in the last couple of days, more than twenty five thousand.

So I think once the dust settles for the elections, I think we're gonna come to the We're gonna come close to the hard realities of governing and realize that we have to really tackle this pandemic. I think that's on the minds of lawmakers and when it comes to longer term domestic policy issues. Greg Zorov Bloomberg Government, Uh, you got to think that it's going to be difficult for h a President Biden should have come to that to to pass something that could be a really uh

big bore. Uh, it's gonna be a lot more difficult for him to pass something like a like a big tax package that could fund things like infrastructure or a some kind of overhauls of the health care system. Uh. What kind of domestic policy uh proposals could actually get through in the months to come under a divided government working with potentially a Senate majority. Leader Mitch McConnell, Yeah, it's a very good question. I think pandemic relief, I

think they have to come in agreement on that. Just what the specifics are Um, I think, yeah, we have to watch out for that, but I think it would include some aid to businesses and hospitals. They have disagreed on aid to state governments. But I think you will see the two parties finally come together after the election on a next tranche of aid for pandemic relief. And

we've talked about infrastructure for many months. Maybe the two sides finally agree on that, but we always people always joke about is it's going to be finally be infrastructure week? So you think they could probably agree on that, although we have that remains to be seen. But you're right though, Um, the Biden if if Joe Biden is elected president, he

had a campaign platform that you know is very aspirational. Um, Now it's going to come to the hard realities of governing, and you know, you're not gonna be able to get a public option added to Medicare or or to the Affordable Care Act, or you're not gonna be able to increase taxes on people making four thousand dollars a year or more as Biden wants. You're not gonna get that through the Congress as we expect it will be currently composed.

Greg what's on your agenda for today? What are you watching for in the next few hours on this Saturday, Well, the counts continue in the four states where voting Uh, I mean, I should say the talion continues that haven't been called. That's Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. We should get updates, uh later this morning from Arizona and Nevada. In Arizona, that's the state where the president has been gaining on Biden in the tally, but not at the

rate that he needs to overtake Biden in Arizona. In Nevada, Biden is up by almost two percentage points, and with UM, if he quinches Nevada and Arizona, the race is over because you'll have two hundred and seventy electoral votes. But as you mentioned earlier, Amy, Biden has several pasts of the presidency. He is also leading in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, and if he wins all four states, Biden will have three hundred and six electoral votes, well above the two

seventy needed to win Greg Gerald, Bloomberg Government. Thank you for joining us on this very busy Saturday morning. Stay tuned for another hour of complete coverage of election and the future of White House policy. I'm Nathan Hagar with Amy Morris. This is Bloomberg. We have no doubt that when the countess finished, Senator Harris and I will be declared the winners. Do we think there's going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence,

so much proof. I ask everyone to stay calm. The process is working. It's going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the last This is special coverage of the from Bloomberg Radio, and this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hagar, Hi'm Amy Morris. The vote still being counted, legal challenges remain, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden and coming up over the next hour, we'll examine the vote and the legal battle, as well as the path ahead

for White House policy. Not only that, but how the next steps could play out in the days and weeks leading up to December's electoral College vote. All straight ahead. For now, we bring in Terry Haynes, founder of pangea policy. We should note Terry pushed back against the blue wave expectations that much of the market was looking for prior to election day. Terry, it does look as though we are going to have a divided government once all the

dust settles. What is that going to mean for the mandate that Joe Biden is trying to put out there for things like UH, climate policy, UH, dealing with the economic setback, UH, dealing with the coronavirus. Well, I think that Vice President Biden is following in a long political tradition of trying to put the best face and in the most emphasis on exactly what he's what he's got out of this election. But the fact is there's no mandate for either side UH. And this is about as

closely divided an election as possible. UH. And he's going to have to work with a Congress that is still very likely marginally Republican, but marginally Republican in the Senate and even more marginally Democratic in the House. What that means in practice is that you don't really have coherent or cohesive party structures. UH. You're gonna have a bunch of shifting coalitions that probably deal well with the fiscal

things that need to happen. Probably you'll end up with a another stimulus in the one point five trillion to two trillion range, and you will continue you to have the parties agreeing on funding government pretty much in the realm that they've been doing for the last decade. But beyond that, I wouldn't look for a lot of policy changes. You mentioned the smaller margin of the Democratic majority in the House, and now how Speaker Nancy Pelosi's leadership there

is being questioned, how's that factor into your outlook? UH? Well, I I I thought all along that the uh, the House was going to be less less democratic than it was. It was already a tiny majority of around seventeen seats, and it stood to reason that the there would be a lot of pressure on the Centrists that had won

in twenty eighteen in Trump districts. Um. I think what's gonna end up happening is that I think there's an important part here with Pelosi that most people miss, which is that the deal that she made when she became Speaker against UH last year was that she would only serve two more terms. So going into this she'll be in her last term. Assuming she survives, at which I think she probably does probably continue to speaker but it

but but no longer will the loyalty be there among Democrats. Uh, And no longer will the ability of Speaker Pelosi be there to uh to to bring these people into line and have them vote on a on a unified basis as they did on contentious things like safer impeachment for example. Uh, that won't be there. Uh. So you're gonna see less discipline in the Democrats, and you're gonna see more jockeying. Paradoxically, that might uh that might lead to more coalition building

and more solutions. Uh, people start reaching across the aisle a little bit more, which would be a good thing for the country. Well, the President Biden be able to work that way, obviously, He's got decades of legislative experience in the Senate. Particularly how much pressure can he put on the House uh to uh to enact the kinds of policy agenda items that he campaigned on. I think

almost none. In in reality, what you have is, uh, you know, the Biden Biden has two problems and you I will get to your question because yours is the second one, and it's important the first problem problem is that uh, he's gonna have to negotiate with a Republican majority Senate just to even put cabinet officials and senior

regulators in place. Uh. There's about I think four thousand positions that are political positions in the United States government, the top that are required to be confirmed by the Senator, about thousands to fift hundreds somewhere in there. Uh. You know, unless the Republican Senate agrees with Biden on who should be in there, he doesn't get nominees. So he's already gonna have to trim his sales and pushed back against the progressives in his own party, which uh, which have

had two conflicting things going on. The first thing is, uh, they haven't been enthusiastic about the Biden Harris ticket. And the second thing is, now that it looks like Biden's gonna win, Uh, they're starting to demand things uh and demand things which of course they can't get in this

divided government. Now to the House, and much more shortly, Uh, you have still even although you still have some of those centrists in place, the vast majority of the House is the progressives and on the Democratic side, and those progressives are people who don't want any part of a moderate agenda, and we'll push back strongly against it. So I think Biden has almost no ability to extract discipline from his own party. Terry Haynes, founder of Pangia Policy.

Always giving us a clarity when it comes to the policy path forward, uh, something that's sorely needed as we continue to navigate a vote count that is still not entirely clear, although the focus is coming in a little bit more as we head through this weekend. Terry Haynes of Pangia Policy, Again, thank you for being with us this morning. I'm Nathan Hagar along with Amy Morris. This

is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the twenty twenty election from Bloomberg Radio, and this is a Bloomberg Daybreak special report. I'm Nathan Hagar. Hi'm Amy Morris. The votes still being counted, legal challenges remain, but the path to

the White House is there for Joe Biden. Want to bring in Kevin's really now Chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Radio and Television and Jennie Zo, Bloomberg News contributor and political science professor at Iona College, and Kevin let's just start with you, President Trump on Twitter claiming voter fraud. Twitters are already flagged at least one of the President's tweets about legal observers being refused admitutes admittance to those

rooms where the votes are being counted. What does all of this do beyond just creating some confusion and delay, Well, two things. I think that analytically speaking, First and foremost, it it once again raises the issue about big tech organizations and the the puns and the clout that they

have in the national and global conversation. And it's a conversation that quite frankly, policymakers here in Washington, d C. Even having for quite some time, you know, and we just saw the other week where big tech ceo is like Jack Dorsey were testified virtually on Capitol Hill, and and quite frankly, I think that conversation is going to continue. Secondly,

in the more immediate news developments. Based upon my reporting, what I can tell you is that the President will be meeting throughout the weekend with his legal team, some of which he has deployed in battleground states like Georgia, Nevada, as well as Pennsylvania. The question becomes for President Trump, and this is a question not being asked by the media but by members of Congress within the president's own party, is what is the strategy in the short term and

in the long term. And that is a question, quite frankly, that they are still trying to sort through. We can talk about all of the different ins and outs of the legalities, and I know Jeanie's I know who has been all over this and the new wants of this, but at the end of the day, it has to come down to a simple message, and Republicans are still

asking for that message to be more clearly articulated. You've seen some tweaks of it amy in which they're saying they want to have all of the legal votes counted, and that's what they're continuing to to intensify with. But we don't have one singular court case, for example, that has made this easily digestible. Well, let's bring in Geniezo

of I own a college. Because the President, as he has once again done this morning, Professor, can say that there are legal votes versus illegal votes, But it does come down to what the election officials themselves are finding and counting as this tally continues, do we see any evidence at this point that there are actually illegal votes being counted right now? At this point, we do not.

I mean, the reality is we simply do not have evidence of voter road or this kind of mouth seasons that the President has been talking about at the polls or with the count That's not to say we won't find evidence of it or that they won't produce that in the future in court, but again, at this point, it's just we don't have it. And you know, look at what the Wall Street Journal editorial board is saying.

Look at what Kevin was just mentioning members of the president's own party in the Senator, saying, you have to have an argument to make in court. It's one thing on Twitter and and and Facebook and elsewhere to proclaim that there are these problems at the polls, to proclaim there's widespread fraud, It's another thing to prove it in court. And as of this moment, as we've all seen, the courts have been unwilling and you know, just not accepting

any of the arguments at least at this point. And it's still early that have been made, and so the President remains sort of screaming in the wind at this point without evidence to back up, and I you know, I'm so here is to hear. As Kevin says, they're going to be meeting with their legal team over the weekend what they come up with in terms of a legal strategy, because that is where their focus needs to be. You know, George W. Bush in two thousand had a

legal team behind him. They were making a solid case, whether you agree with it or not, that the courts were willing to listen to. We haven't heard yet what that might potentially be from the President and his team. I would like to follow up on that if I could, Jeannie with just going back to because none of this is really that big of a surprise. Remember in President Trump then when he was still candidate, Trump said he would accept the results of the election if he wins.

He was very clear on that point, same thing this time, and he's already said he'd be taking this fight as far as he can legally. But what we're seeing now is a split in the Republican Party over whether to fight this and how far to take this fight. What could this possibly mean for the GOP down the line, it's a great question, because you know, we just think

about it at the at the state level. In Pennsylvania, the President has indicated that there are problems at the polls, he doesn't trust the count coming out of certain aspects certain counties, particularly Democratic counties in Pennsylvania. Yet on the down ballot you have important racist sided for Republicans in that state. Well, how do you square those two things. The Republican Party is bigger than Donald Trump. Of course he's the leader of the party as President of the

United States. But to your point, his arguments have an impact on down ballot, and Republicans didn't do so badly. Down ballot looks like and again you were just talking to specials in Georgia, looks like they will probably hold the Senate. They picked up seats in the House, you know, really unexpected. We thought Democrats would gain. They got at least six seats, if not more, in the House, and they did well at the state and local level in

certain states. So the President claiming flaunt fraud has implications on all of those races, and Republicans are going to have to think really hard about how they go forward and make these arguments. Not to mention Unlike in two thousand, we're talking multiple states where he may be contesting and asking for recounts in some states, wanting votes counted, in

some states wanting the vote counts stopped. That makes it that much more difficult for attorneys to go into court and make a solid case on behalf of the president. I'm watching the headlines continue to cross this Saturday morning on the Bloomberg terminal. The Biden campaign is speaking to MSNBC this morning saying they feel frustrated with the networks. They expect a race call today. Kevin CILLI, what are you hearing in terms of where the margins are right now?

Are we at a point where we can see more states called by the major networks today? Well, I mean, and this is a really fascinating conversation that is that is now emerging publicly, which is how networks and news organizations call a state for a candidate. And you know, I go back historically, speaking to two thousand, when quite frankly, Americans learned, maybe in real time, about the importance of that you could win a popular vote but losing an election.

And I think this go around in two thousand and twenty, Americans are learning about just how complex mail in voting and ballots and ABSENCEEE ballots, and and the impact accounting in the data and the trends, and the impact of all of this in real time how long it can take. Uh. That said, based upon the conversations that I've had with uh Biden's campaign as well as his political strategic orbit, UH, they're incredibly frustrated. And we still have to remind people

that it doesn't come down to the network calls. It comes down to raw votes in each state. Kevin's really Chief Washington corresponded from Bloomberg Radio and Television, along with Jeanie's a know Bloomberg News contributor, political science professor, and Iland College. Thanks to both of you for joining us this morning. I'm Nathan Hagar along with Amy Morris. This is Bloomberg. This is special coverage on the twenty twenty election from Bloomberg Radio, and this is a Bloomberg Daybreak

special report. I'm Nathan Hagar, I'm Amy Morris. The votes are still being counted, but the path to the White House is there for Joe Biden. Let's bring in Josh wind Grove now. Bloomberg News White House car responded and Josh, it's right there in your title, White House Correspondent. You're at the White House on a regular basis. I'm curious about a sense of optimism or hopeful determination. What the

mood might be at the White House at this hour. Well, I think I think they're in pretty dour moods, or at least more dour than they were a couple of days ago. You know, rewind to Thursday, the Trump campaign was, you know, doing call after call with the press, press conference after press conference, saying that they think the account would go their way, particularly in Arizona. Uh in Pennsylvania. That all sort of dried up yesterday and has continued

to drive up today. It looks like, uh, it's unclear what Trump's doing today. It could be golfing, we don't know yet. So, you know, the numbers are really ticking in one direction. There is no call at this point, the AP or none of the major networks have called it, but it feels like it's only a matter of time because every batch about coming in in Pennsylvania just drives

Biden's bleep up higher. You know, Georgia is similar. They're pretty much almost done counting and Georgia overseas ballots, which is members of the military and other folks overseas, which doesn't actually skew necessarily as trumpy as you would think it would. Um, But you know, we're headed for a recount there basically in the four crucial states. Biden leads in all of them, and there aren't a lot of signs that there's a bunch of Trump boats waiting to

be counted. One thing we do know, Josh, is that the President has been tweeting this morning claiming a lack of transparency, talking again about illegally cast votes. Beyond rhetoric, is there any more in terms of strategy for how the president plans to pursue this fight over the ongoing vote count. No, not really. Um. You know, they've been

filing suits in particular in those four states Pennsylvania, George, Arizona, Nevada. Um. The pushback yesterday, it was weird watching Fox News yesterday. I watched Fox for a living essentially, you know, and uh, the tone changed a little bit. There was pushback from Republican allies of the president saying, you know, essentially put up or shut up. But where is the proof? You know,

the campaign has not provided proof widespread fraud. In fact, the only one case that they brought forward is a case of a woman in Nevada who says that she went to vote in person and was told that her mail ballot had already been cast uh and the Clark County registrars said that they looked at the mail ballot and their view that it's her signature. In other words,

they're accusing her of trying to vote twice. So the only the only evidence that they's been brought forward so far by the Trump campaign is a woman who the part who the county registrar basically says attempted to vote twice. So that's that's that's all they've gone so far soever this one. There, you know, we're waiting for evidence. There isn't any yet. Well well, Josh, I think the judges have also said publicly that there they too are waiting

for evidence. They want to see more evidence before they continue to proceed with these court cases. I want to ask you, though, to pull the curtain back a little bit. Who is in the President's ear to advise him, to tell him how to either concede gracefully or take the fight to the courts. Who will the president listen to At this point, his circle is essentially what it always

has been. First of all, is this family, um, and what the signs are seeing from the family, our mixed Donald Trump Jr. Has been you know, publicly urging Trump allies to go on offense, you know, hold press conferences, raised pressure to what end I'm not sure, but essentially get out there in fight. Um A. Banka. Trump on the other hand, has been pretty quiet. Uh. And so it's it's not really clear what his kids would be telling him. And then outside of that you get into

like the Mike tents world. Mike ten has been pretty low profile since it all happened. Um Uh, loyal foot soldier for the president. Um So, I think I think it's sort of that in a circle. But then of course you mentioned um Mark Meadows as a COVID case. Um A little. We missed a couple of zeros on that total. It's not twelve hundred, it's a hundred and twenty thousand cases that we've had in the US yesterday

hand the day before. Um So, you know, we've got a resurgent pandemic right now that seems to have hit Trump world pretty again. And I've got sort of the chief of staff, the Trump campaigns battleground director and not one of its most loyal congress and Matt Gave reportedly

also having COVID. Kudos to the Bloomberg White House team for uncovering that scoop that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and sever several other people in the Trump orbit have come down with COVID nineteen In our last thirty seconds here, Josh, what does that do in terms of the disarray that we're seeing from the Trump side as this account goes on. I mean, Trump released the statement yesterday that was combative, but you could read it

as the start of a climb down. If the numbers keep going the way they have been going, then it will you know, we we can't. We're going to get a call sooner or later. I thought it would be yesterday. I was wrong, you know. But if if Pennsylvania Friends is called today, I'm sure we'll see last gasps of legal fights. But this feels like it's marching in one direction. We're certainly seeing a lot of care being taken by the networks with these margins. As the count goes on,

Josh wind Grove Bloomberg News White House correspondents. So great having you on with us this morning on this special report from Bloomberg Daybreak on the ongoing election fight coming up, the legal battle for the White House, how these lawsuits could play out as President Trump has said he's willing to take them to the Supreme Court. I'm Nathan Hagar along with Amy Morris. This is Bloomberg. This is special coverage of the election from Bloomberg Radio. This is a

Bloomberg Daybreak special report. It is on Wall Street. I'm Nathan Hagar Morris. The path to the White Houses there for Joe Biden, but a protracted legal battle could be in the offing. We bring in June Grosso, host of Bloomberg Law, are resident legal expert, as we watch breaking developments across the Bloomberg terminal this morning June, as Michael alluded to, President Trump announced his legal team will be

holding a news conference in Philadelphia. He now says it will be at the Four Seasons at eleven thirty this morning on the East Coast to deal with what he calls the Four Seasons uh landscaping. Not quite sure what that means, whether that's some kind of UH term that he's trying to put out in terms of what's happening with the vote. What will you be watching for, uh, in the Pennsylvania legal fight, Well, I'll be watching for

some actual allegations of voter fraud. So President Trump has been saying that there's voter fraud, and that's what a lot of the the Trump surrogates have been saying as well in lawsuits. But the lawsuits have been getting dismissed time after time. Every time I look and check, there's another judge who has dismissed another lawsuit because they make the allegations, but they don't have the evidence to back

it up. So, for example, just yesterday in Nevada, there was an allegation that they shouldn't be using the signature matching machines. They should be checking them by hand because the signature matching machines don't do a good enough job. Well, the judge said there was absolutely no evidence, that there was no proof whatsoever, even though there were some there were some some papers that were filed and some a lawyer attributed to it, but you know, no real evidence.

And that keeps happening time and time again, that the judges are just dismissing these lawsuits without any evidence. So I can't imagine what the legal team is going to be alleging in Pennsylvania today. Well, June, you and I have talked about this before, and you know, confusion and distraction can be a strategy, if not a just a delaying tactic. If you were the president's attorney, how would

you advise him at this point? Does he have a path to the presidency through the courts, assuming there may be some evidence somewhere. Even if there's evidence, it has to be in a state that's pivotal. It has to be enough concerning enough votes that will make a difference in that pivotal state. And even you know, in Pennsylvania, everyone is really focused on Pennsylvania because the president has to win Pennsylvania, and there have been a lot of

cases filed in that in that state. However, none of the cases have really come through for the president except for one that allowed his election observers to be a little bit closer to watching the process. So I mean, that's the critical thing. And even in Pennsylvania, where they're trying to focus on the number of ballots that were counted after election day received after election day. That's what's

up at the Supreme Court. From what I have been told, those are just ballots in the thousands, not even in the tens of thousands, So where would they get the numbers to turn any of these states? So far, none of these lawsuits that I've seen concerns itself with anything more than perhaps ten thousand votes. So it doesn't seem to me like there either is a path through the lawsuits unless they come up with some new theory that will attack the substantial number in the margin of victory

in one of these states to make a difference. So wanna pass on a little more information about this news conference that the president says his legal team will be holding later this morning in Philadelphia, And thanks to Bob Bragger, producer for passing this along. That it's going to be held at four Seasons Total Landscaping. That's a that's a business in Philadelphia where the news conference is going to be held. As we wait for much more information on

what the president's legal team could be pursuing. But June Grosso, host of Bloomberg Law, given how the cases have gone for the president's team, uh since election Day, where do you see this going? What do you make of the strategy that has been put out thus far and does it point to where the Trump team could take itself as as it tries to pursue further remedies for whatever

it sees as going wrong with this vote. You know, a member of the US Federal Election Commission said today on CNN that there's no evidence of voter fraud, there's no evidence of illegal votes being cast, and yet the Trump campaign they are going, as you said, have that very It will be very interesting for all of us to hear what they're going to talk about and what kind of allegations they're going to come up with. They've also sent legal teams to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

So they're looking for their looking for fraud. They're looking for something to be able to sue on. But that's not an easy task. I mean, as I just said, you have to have evidence. And an interesting thing is, uh, looking at the lawyers so far, we're not seeing any of the heavy hitting lawyers that you're used to seeing

in these kinds of election battles. So and um, I understand there was a reporting on CNN again that President Trump was upset with the legal team that was put together by his son in law, Jared Kushner, because you don't hear those big names you'd see, for example, Rudy Giuliani was the last time they had a conference in Philly was the was a lawyer out front, and he's not an attorney that deals with election law. Election law so specific to each state. It's different from other law,

very specific to each state. And you have special litigators in those states that are usually used to deal with these issues because they're just so complex. Because the procedures, especially in until in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, the procedures aren't really minute, and they sometimes conflict with each other, and there's been no legal there's no not been clear legal guidance in Pennsylvania about a lot of the vote counting procedures. June I asked how you would um how you would

advise the president. Now I want to ask how if you were one of Joe Biden's attorneys, because both sides have lawyered up. If you were advising the Biden campaign, would you just tell them to sit tight, keep your head down, and keep the faith. How would you advise them? What is their role? Right? Now as the president continues to take all these different courses through the courts, their role is defense. That's simple. It's been that way since

these lawsuits over the accounts started. They come in and they debunk whatever the allegations are. You have a top lawyer in Mark Elias, and he was the one who who debunked the Nevada case, one of the Nevada cases that I talked about before the signature matching machine, saying

there's just no evidence here. That's what they do. They come in and they look at the allegations that the Trump campaign is aching, and then they first say, where's the evidence here, where's your proof, which is what most of the judges have been saying in these cases in Michigan that its cases have been dismissed in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and the judges all say the same thing, there's no evidence for this. So it's easy to make these claims.

Anyone can make these claims, but you've got to come up with evidence. And remember something else, It's really important that once the vote is cast, it's really difficult for a court to come in and say, no, we're not going to count that vote because the voter has reliance on the machinery, on the rules of the election, the voter has cast the vote. So even the Supreme Court will find it very difficult to say these votes that you've cast, voters that you relied on and you exercised

your franchise, these votes won't count. That's different from what happened in Bush by Gore. The Supreme Court there didn't say, oh, these votes are not going to count. They said you can't recount these. So I think it's a really big step for a court to take to discount any of the votes that have been cast. JOm Grosso, host of Bloomberg Law, thank you for joining us on this special

edition of Bloomberg Daybreak on the election count. Stay with us throughout the weekend and again first thing Monday morning. Is we tracked the latest on the election, the legal battle, and the path ahead for White House policy. I'm Nathan Hagar with Amy Morris. This is Bloomberg